6 Powerful Leadership Strategies – And the best times to use them
The ability to lead effectively is an empowering quality that will serve as a huge catalyst for personal achievement and career progression. Our ability to lead effectively can be the difference between us getting a job and not getting the job, it can be the difference between promotion and stagnation and it can be the difference between success and failure in projects and our overall career.
This is why it is important that leaders and would-be leaders are continually focused on developing and refining their approach to leadership.
which can be done by completing an MBA or doing some online self-learning. One area to look at is your leadership style and, in particular, developing a flexible leadership style which you can adapt to suit certain situations for maximum effect.
In a Harvard Business Review Paper, ‘Leadership That Get’s Results’, which is a research and thought based white paper, they argue that the most successful leaders have strengths in several areas of emotional intelligence which are: self awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill.
Can you switch leadership style as needed?
The HBR paper then goes on to highlight six styles of leadership, each of which makes use of the key elements of emotional intelligence in different amounts and combination.
Here’s the nub of what they are saying; they suggest that best leaders are skilled at several different types of leadership, and are flexible enough in their approach to be able to switch between styles to suit the particular circumstances.
The question is therefore, not only can you exhibit the traits of a successful leader and switch styles as circumstances dictate, but what style of leadership should use/switch to according the prevailing situation? The answer to the first question is easy, in that not only can people switch to different styles of leadership if needed, the approach can also be learned. In terms of what style of leadership they should deploy in each situation, I have set out the HBR advice on this below.
6 Styles of leadership and the best times to use them (HBR excerpt)
1. The coercive style. This “Do what I say” approach can be very effective in a turnaround situation, a natural disaster, or when working with problem employees. But in most situations, coercive leadership inhibits the organization’s flexibility and dampens employees’ motivation.
2. The authoritative style. An authoritative leader takes a “Come with me” approach: she states the overall goal but gives people the freedom to choose their own means of achieving it. This style works especially well when a business is adrift. It is less effective when the leader is working with a team of experts who are more experienced than he is.
3. The affiliative style. The hallmark of the affiliative leader is a “People come first” attitude. This style is particularly useful for building team harmony or increasing morale. But its exclusive focus on praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. Also, affiliative leaders rarely offer advice, which often leaves employees in a quandary.
4. The democratic style. This style’s impact on organizational climate is not as high as you might imagine. By giving workers a voice in decisions, democratic leaders build organizational flexibility and responsibility and help generate fresh ideas. But sometimes the price is endless meetings and confused employees who feel leaderless.
5. The pacesetting style. A leader who sets high performance standards and exemplifies them-self has a very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. But other employees tend to feel overwhelmed by such a leader’s demands for excellence—and to resent his tendency to take over a situation.
6. The coaching style. This style focuses more on personal development than on immediate work-related tasks. It works well when employees are already aware of their weaknesses and want to improve, but not when they are resistant to changing their ways.
This flexible approach to leadership is not easy suggests the HBR research paper, but, if you master, it will pay off in results and performance. In fact, the HBR research shows that leaders who have mastered 4 or more of these style, particularly the authoritative, democratic, affiliative and coaching styles have the best team environment and business performance.
As you can see managers should always be looking to develop their leadership skills and the key way for managers to become better is to consider becoming a master of business administration to hone all the skills necessary to lead your organization to success.
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